Phase 3: Out of Production / Best Effort Support

The Product Life Cycle Policy is intended to help you plan for the ultimate evolution of your Instron® testing system and to provide recommendations on how to move forward. Instron is dedicated to meeting customer needs. Keeping you informed is our duty as a responsible supplier.

Phase 3 – Out of Production/Best Effort Support nears the end of the Product Life Cycle. This formal designation means that products are no longer in production and service support is on a best-effort basis, where sourcing parts for your system will take longer and will be at a higher cost. Advance notification of transition to Phase 4 – Discontinued, the final Product Life Cycle Support step, will be provided for these affected products. For safety and data integrity issues, customers will be notified.

Many part numbers are already designated as “unavailable.” Instron will continue to provide after-market support for these parts through the following services, as long as resource availability permits:

Repair and Return: Customers send their defective parts to Instron for Repair and Return. Repairs are performed on a best effort basis (RMA process).

Exchange: While customers may take the chance to purchase replacement parts from Instron’s stock of repaired parts inventory (availability not guaranteed), we strongly advise exchanging to new technology. The exchange program requires that defective parts be returned to Instron within 30 days of shipment.

Remanufactured: Customers can purchase a remanufactured part without the need to return a defective unit. Remanufactured parts are reconditioned, tested, and repackaged.

If your testing system is in Phase 3, take action to protect your laboratory:

Improve efficiency with the latest industry solutions capabilities

Increase operator productivity with user-friendly software

Protect your competitive advantage for the long term

Migrating to a New Testing System

As new technologies become available, you have the opportunity to improve your testing instrument to keep pace with continually increasing testing and industry demands. Systems in best effort status cannot provide the same level of reliability, data access, diagnostic, and control capabilities that are available from newer Instron product offerings. In light of the out of production / best effort support, users are encouraged to evaluate the risk of maintaining their current systems against the benefits of migrating to newer technology.